Installation

Hardware requirements

You need three things:

A working ÄKTA Prime plus instrument.
A computer — any reasonably modern Windows, macOS or Linux machine.
A USB-to-serial cable to connect the two.

The cable — get the chipset right

This is the single most important thing to get right, and the most common cause of trouble.

The ÄKTA Prime is controlled over an RS-232 serial link through a 9-pin (DB-9) port on the instrument. Modern computers no longer have a serial port, so you connect through a USB-to-serial (USB-to-RS-232) cable.

Buy an FTDI cable, not a Prolific one

Use a cable built around the FTDI FT232RL chipset. Avoid cables that use the PL2303 (Prolific) chipset — they are cheaper but unreliable with this instrument and can be very difficult to get working, especially on Windows.

A cable confirmed to work well:

DTECH USB to Serial Adapter Cable with FTDI FT232RL Chipset, DB9 RS232 Male Port.

This is a single cable — USB at the computer end, a 9-pin (DB-9) connector at the instrument end. No separate serial cable or null-modem adaptor is needed.

The link runs at 9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit; AktaPrime.jl configures this for you.

The computer

Any ordinary desktop or laptop is fine. A small, inexpensive mini-PC works well and is easy to leave next to the instrument. A tested example:

Dell OptiPlex 3060 (8th-generation Intel Core i3-8100T, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD) running Windows 11 Pro — works perfectly.

Installing Julia

AktaPrime.jl runs on Julia version 1.12 or newer.

Install Julia — the easiest way is juliaup, or download an installer from julialang.org/downloads.
Make sure the Julia application folder is on your PATH, so that installed apps can be run by name.
On macOS/Linux, add this to your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, …):
```
export PATH="$HOME/.julia/bin:$PATH"
```
On Windows, the folder is %USERPROFILE%\.julia\bin (for example C:\Users\yourname\.julia\bin). Add it to your PATH via Start menu → "Edit environment variables for your account" → Path → New, then paste that folder. Close and reopen any terminal window afterwards so the change takes effect.

Installing AktaPrime

Start Julia, press ] to enter the package manager, and install the app:

pkg> app add AktaPrime

This puts an AktaPrime command on your PATH. You can now run it from any terminal. To update or remove it later:

pkg> app up AktaPrime
pkg> app rm AktaPrime

Opening a terminal

AktaPrime.jl is started by typing a command in a terminal.

Windows — open the Start menu, type cmd, and press Enter to open the Command Prompt (PowerShell works too). File paths on Windows use backslashes and a drive letter, e.g. C:\Users\yourname\Documents. To move into a folder, use cd, and if the folder is on a different drive, switch drive first:
```
D:
cd D:\akta_runs
```
macOS — open Terminal (Applications → Utilities → Terminal).
Linux — open your terminal application.

To check the app is installed and on your PATH, type AktaPrime and press Enter.

Finding and setting the serial port

AktaPrime.jl talks to the instrument through a named serial port. You tell it which port to use once, and it remembers your choice.

Windows

Plug in the USB-to-serial cable and switch the instrument on.
Open Device Manager (Start menu → type "Device Manager").
Expand Ports (COM & LPT). Your FTDI cable appears as something like USB Serial Port (COM3) — note the COM number.
- If it does not appear, or shows a warning icon, install the FTDI driver (search for "FTDI VCP driver"). Genuine FTDI FT232RL cables normally work with the driver Windows installs automatically.
In a Command Prompt, start the app with that port:
```
AktaPrime COM3
```

Linux

Plug in the adaptor, then list serial devices:
```
ls /dev/ttyUSB*      # USB-to-serial adaptors
ls /dev/ttyS*        # built-in serial ports
```
If unsure which appeared, run dmesg | tail right after plugging it in.
Start the app with that device:
```
AktaPrime /dev/ttyUSB0
```
If you get a permissions error, add yourself to the dialout group (sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER) and log out and back in.

macOS

List serial devices:
```
ls /dev/tty.usbserial-*
```
Start the app with that device:
```
AktaPrime /dev/tty.usbserial-XXXX
```

Once set, the port is saved as a preference, so on subsequent runs you can just type AktaPrime.